Background: Research at the secondary and postsecondary levels has clearly demonstrated the critical role that individual and contextual characteristics play in instructors' decision to adopt educational innovations. Although recent research has shed light on factors influencing the teaching practices of science, technology, engineering, and…

Background: Internationally, there is a growing concern for developing STEM education to prepare students for a scientifically and technologically advanced society. Despite educational bodies lobbying for an increased focus on STEM, there is limited research on how engineering might be incorporated especially in the elementary school curriculum. A…

Background: The expanded use of online and blended learning programs in K-12 STEM education has led researchers to propose design principles for effective e-learning systems. Much of this research has focused on the impact on learning, but not how instructional design impacts student engagement, which has a critical impact both on short-term…

Background: Collecting data on instructional practices is an important step in planning and enacting meaningful initiatives to improve undergraduate science instruction. Self-report survey instruments are one of the most common tools used for collecting data on instructional practices. This paper is an instrument- and item-level analysis of…

Background: Bioinformatics--the use of computers in biology--is of major and increasing importance to biological sciences and medicine. We conducted a preliminary investigation of the value of bringing practical, university-level bioinformatics education to the school level. We conducted voluntary activities for pupils at two schools in Scotland…

Background: Complex problem-solving competence is regarded as a key construct in science education. But due to the necessity of using interactive and intransparent assessment procedures, appropriate measures of the construct are rare. This paper consequently presents the development and validation of a computer-based problem-solving environment,…

Background: A major problem in teaching science is the overcoming of misconceptions. Reif found a procedure specifying a science concept. Neglect of this procedure can induce misconceptions. To find what can prevent misconceptions, students entering engineering were tested to see whether they understood easy problems of movement requiring the…

Background: Many innovative teaching strategies have been developed under the assumption that documenting successful student learning outcomes at the development site is enough to spread the innovation successfully to secondary sites. Since this 'show them and they will adopt' model has yet to produce the desired large-scale transformation, this…

Background: The knowledge that is required for teaching includes subject matter content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Although CK and PCK are distinct components of the teachers' knowledge, the distinction between those two components and the relationships between them are still underexplored. In a previous study, we…

The shift from science inquiry to science practices as recommended in the US reports "A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas" and the "Next Generation Science Standards" has implications for classroom/school level instruction and assessment practices and, therefore, for…

Background: Although teaching nature of science (NOS) has been continually emphasized in many major reform efforts in science education, researchers claim that students do not possess adequate views of NOS. Insufficient understanding of NOS can be associated with the ineffectiveness of curricular or instructional approaches. Consequently,…

Background: As an effort to account for disparities in mathematics performance between American and East Asian middle school students, the present research aims to compare the relationship between learning styles (competitive and cooperative) and mathematics performance among middle school students between the USA and the three top-performing East…

Background: Given the continued need to educate the public on both the meteorological and engineering hazards posed by the severe winds of a tornado, an interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) module designed by the faculty from the Oceanography and Mechanical Engineering Departments at the United States Naval…

Background: During the middle school years, students frequently show significant declines in motivation toward school in general and mathematics in particular. One way in which researchers have sought to spark students' interests and build their sense of competence in mathematics and in STEM more generally is through the use of technology. Yet…

Background: The field of STEM education is increasingly focusing on processes of individual, cultural, and organization-level change in postsecondary institutions, yet current approaches tend to focus on individual leverage points isolated from other factors and the broader institutional context. Research on reform implementation highlights how…